PGMA Winner: Disneyland

Gina Kellogg Hogan, managing editor

Few sites encounter the thousands of visitors to which Disneyland (Anaheim,
Calif.) is host everyday. As a result, its horticulture crew must contend
with problems other sites never experience. Grounds-maintenance tasks
include performing most chores on the park during the night, finishing
irrigation during early morning hours, repairing injured plants and
equipment daily, and changing out acres of themed landscaping seasonally.

The park employs between 52 and 57 full-time employees as well as 6
seasonal workers. Combined, these workers put in 2,360 man-hours per week.
The special challenges these workers face would be daunting to many. After
all, how many grounds crews must perform their daily chores under
transportable, generator-powered light towers at night? Nevertheless,
personnel turnover is minimal, according to Karen Hedges, manager of
horticulture and park enhancement. As a result of their dedication, Hedges
and her crew received the Professional Grounds Management Society's Grand
Award for best-maintained amusement or theme park.

Most Popular

Related Topics

advertisement

A trip into Fantasyland
Maintaining the landscaping at Disneyland is a time-consuming job that
focuses on detail. Most of the landscape crew, for example, arrive at 2
a.m. Crews focus on various aspects at the park each day, including acres
of turf, woody ornamentals and display beds.

For example, special attention is given each day to the famous landscaping
of Mickey Mouse's face at the park's entrance. After scrutinizing these
flowers--which typically comprise more than 150 flats--a crew leader notes
any that don't meet the site's quality standards. Then, during the morning
meeting, the crew leader describes which plants to remove. (Six times a
year, the landscape crew removes every flower from Mickey's face and
replaces it with another seasonal variety. The crew completes the entire
planting process in less than 8 hours, which is a must because the park
opens at 10 a.m.--8 a.m. in summer.) Although the park does not grow its
own flowers, local nurseries supply it with between 10 and 500 flats daily.

After passing Mickey's flowering face, visitors encounter Main Street,
which represents small-town America at the turn of the century. There
visitors discover more examples of the park's attention to detail--for
example, the 10-foot-tall elm trees that line the street. Landscape crews
replaced the trees about 5 years ago, taking out the oaks that had lined
the street during the previous 10 years. In another 5 years, the park plans
to replace the elms with a different variety to keep the trees within the
off-scale size of Main Street's buildings.

Disneyland grounds crews give similar attention to choosing and maintaining
plants for other areas of the park. In Adventureland, crews encourage
tropical plants to become somewhat unruly. Frontierland contains displays
of cacti, ocotillo, grasses and other arid-habitat plant material, along
with a Missouri-plant palette around Tom Sawyer's island. Plants form
geometric shapes in Tomorrowland, a contrast to the relaxed beauty of
magnolias and macadamia-nut trees in New Orleans Square or the firs and
redwoods in Critter Country. Fantasyland contains the most labor-intensive
plants to maintain. There, spiraled junipers stagger 12 feet high above
eugenia hedges and topiary animals, which require constant attention and a
trained eye. Flower color is of great significance here, as it is in
ToonTown, the crazy-cartoony land where Mickey, Minnie and other Disney
characters reside.

Irrigation requirements are unique
In California's often arid climate, irrigation systems are a must to keep
plants vigorous. However, runoff from operating them during the day could
create a slippery hazard for visitors. Thus, the systems cycle on and off
throughout the park between 1 and 7 a.m., allowing crews to clean up wet
areas before the park opens. Simultaneously, maintenance crews pass through
the park daily performing paint touch-ups on fences or other items to bring
the park up to "show" condition before the gates open to guests.

At the end of Main Street, visitors reach the Central Plaza Hub in the
middle of the park. There, as in many parts of the park, transformations
can take place overnight. Several years ago, for example, the grounds crew
completely re-landscaped the area. During the early hours of one morning,
crews removed all of the sod, flowers and bushes, replacing them with new
plantings. More than 30 people worked in the area to plant Carolina
cherries, hundreds of annuals and new sod. In addition, crews removed
several 40- to 50-foot ficus trees that overgrew the area so that a new
statue of Walt Disney, Disneyland's founder, would be easy to see. By the
time the park opened a few hours later, the transformation was complete.

Irrigation controllers are creatively "hidden" in landscaped areas
throughout the park. In the Central Plaza Hub, for example, only visitors
who look very closely are likely to find that area's controller, concealed
in the base of a tree near the plaza's edge. Hidden in its gnarled roots is
a simulated section under which the control box is located. The counterfeit
section of tree blends naturally into the tree's actual root system.

Pests are rarely a problem at Disneyland. Because crews change out plants
and sod so often, weeds and insects rarely get a chance to establish
themselves. Nevertheless, the crew retains three licensed pesticide
applicators on its staff.

New additions can cause new problems
"Fantasmic!" is a nighttime show in Frontierland. On selected weekends,
monsters and heroes battle good and evil in the waters of the Rivers of
America. When it first opened, people were allowed to view the attraction
on nearby lawn areas, trampling the turf. Eventually, crews replaced the
turf with paved walkways and terraced the area with azalea planters.

One of the newest "lands" to join the Disney community is Mickey's
ToonTown. Based on the movie "Roger Rabbit," ToonTown has the same surreal
quality as the movie. Because children are so highly concentrated in the
area, ToonTown is a high-maintenance area. Landscape crews spend a lot of
time caring for the fenced bedding plants and young trees.

Brightly colored flowering trees and shrubs dot the landscape of ToonTown,
enhancing its cartoonish atmosphere. Tabebuia umbellata and Spathodea are
two of the trees specially chosen for the area's entrance.

In the off-limits area behind ToonTown, an intricate system of girders and
braces support several trees in giant planters far above the ground. Fed by
a special irrigation system that snakes its way through the beams, the
trees are situated so that visitors inside the park see just their tops.

The site for Disneyland today would be unrecognizable to anyone who visited
it before the park opened 25 years ago. Originally covered with orange
trees and a few avocado trees, the site has been transformed into a Magic
Kingdom of imagination and fun. Its original conception--to provide an
escape from the cares of today into the nostalgia of the past, the
excitement of the future and the wonderful realm of fantasy--continues to
be evident today--perhaps even more so.